


around the world in 730 days (with your feelings)

by sonatine



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pining, captain's log: i'm sailing around the world and my best friend won't write me back, childish tycoon, sometimes everyone else can see what you can't, troy and abed in deniiiiiiiiiiiiiial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:35:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23655457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonatine/pseuds/sonatine
Summary: Jeff told him once,You sound like a war widow every time you say Abed’s name.
Relationships: Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 58
Kudos: 861
Collections: Cleo's Ultimate Guide to Fanfiction





	around the world in 730 days (with your feelings)

Garrett did not want to hear Abed Nadir lean toward Troy Barnes, tilt his head, and ask, “Want to do a full 24-hour weird-down in the dreamatorium?”

Garrett does not want to know what a dreamatorium is. He already walked in on a couple having sex on the urinal that morning. Abed goes on, “Just you, me, and our imaginations — no restraints.” 

Garrett abandons the water fountain line. He doesn't want to think about who ties up whom. He goes to the vending machines instead. Someone’s having sex there too. 

#

Leonard Rodriguez, father of four, grandfather of sixteen, is witnessing Shirley from Anthropology class get married in the community college library study room, mainly because he’d sat down on a bench earlier, pulled a hammy, and now can’t get up. It isn’t a bad wedding. The brunette overachiever hugs him. And now drama is unfolding on the dance floor (smelly carpet). 

Abed — the tall filmmaker who always says good morning to Leonard like it was a hall pass — is dancing with a pretty girl. Abed’s friend is not having this. He eyes the dancers jealously, smoothing down his vest. They’re wearing matching suits. Leonard has seen this before, in 1962: Kenneth and Jared had worn matching suits too. They’d also been screwing their tailor, on the side. 

Troy cuts into the dance. He pulls Abed aside with grace, a land lingering there, face tilted up, so that Abed has to look down into his eyes. He whispers something into Abed’s ear that makes Abed’s face clear. Abed says something like, “To the time-mobile?” and Troy, football star who can bench 280 but brags about 300, breathes, “ _Yes._ ”

This is more erotic that than movie Leonard woke up to last week after he fell asleep on the couch. 

#

“Abed is a magical elf-like man who makes our lives better than reality,” Troy shouts in Jeff’s face. 

_Better than reality._ Jesus Christ. Jeff has never had anyone defend him with that kind of fervor, or vocabulary. Or defend him ever. Or take that much of an interest. Jeff has defended murderers with less passion than Troy and Abed exhibit toward each other's cereal preferences. The only person who can nearly match their intensity is the dean, which in Jeff’s tally book is probably not in the positives column. 

#

Troy doesn’t know why he’s so upset. Well, like. He does. A loan shark was going to break Abed’s legs. It’s amazing Troy is still standing. But somehow, sitting on the floor, dredging up the words, “I am mad at you,” is harder. It feels like dragging a dead body up from the waves. 

Abed’s staring down at him in betrayal. 

Troy’s never had a problem not lying to Abed before. Even if it would hurt Abed’s feelings. 

He isn’t sure why it’s different now.

#

Abed gets a wife in a video game. Troy is jealous. It’s appalling that he’s jealous. But it’s the same feeling he had when he was a kid and his teachers gave all his friends gold stars and Troy got told to _settle down, Mr. Barnes._

He destroys the flash drive Abed saved the code on. Abed must never try to reaccess the game, because he doesn’t mention it. Troy is both relieved and furious. 

He wants an argument. He wants Abed to confront him. He’d get defensive, and Abed would push back, then Troy would push him around a little, and then Abed would have him up against the wall, hands digging into his hips, kissing him like the world was ending— 

Troy jolts out of sleep. He’s hard. 

#

Pierce dies and he gives Troy a boat. Troy, who has never seen the ocean. Troy, who has never had his own bedroom or filed for taxes or figured out what he could be like outside of a state shaped like a square. 

Abed tries to persuade him to stay. It isn’t obvious to anyone except Troy, and he’s annoyed. Who is Abed to tell him what to do? Doesn’t Abed ever care about _Troy’s_ feelings? Sometimes Troy feels like their relationship is very one sided. They do what Abed wants, all the time; no matter what _Troy_ wants. Abed’s selfish, and always has been. It’s one of the best things about him, because Abed knows who he is and doesn’t make excuses for it. 

Troy has no idea who he is.

“The lava’s real to me,” Abed says, voice breaking.

Troy realizes _he_ is the selfish one. The middle child that never had to babysit like the older ones, or stand up for themselves like the younger ones. All he does is bop around, doing what he wants in the moment. Hurting people’s feelings. Hurting his best friend’s feelings. He’s spent so much of his time at Greendale protecting Abed from people who wish him harm, but Troy is the one hurting him. 

Abed says, “Goodbye, Troy,” and plunges into fake lava. Troy knows, in his heart, even if neither of them will admit it: it’s a breakup. 

Abed never does anything by halves. 

#

Abed rides home with Annie. It’s not out of spite: it’s because Abed doesn’t like to deviate from a) schedules and b) preplanned arrangements. Troy can’t leave his car here overnight and drive back with them, because someone from Craigslist is coming over in the morning to buy it. Troy doesn’t have many possessions, but it doesn’t make sense to bring more than a quarter of them onto a boat.

He takes the shortcut through the cafeteria, because he’s itchy under his skin. He sidesteps a couple breaking up in the darkness, then does a double-take. 

The dean is crying. No, _Jeff_ is crying. The dean is hugging him. The noises and faces Jeff makes is breaking Troy’s brain.

“Okay, c’mon now,” says the dean, smoothing a hand over Jeff’s shoulder. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“I blew it, Craig.”

There’s something particularly mind boggling about addressing someone called _the_ _Dean_ by their given name. Like imagine calling up the President to ask “Hey, Barack, want to get brunch Sunday?” or asking Master Chief where he shops for pajamas. It bumps Jeff up to a bracket of adulthood (and intimacy) that Troy can’t even imagine. 

Troy tries to sneak away, but his shoes are too dope for that. The flashing catches the dean’s eye. He looks up. Jeff looks up. Troy braces himself for an explosion, or kidnapping, or blackmail for the crime of witnessing Jeff Winger show emotion.

But he doesn’t. Jeff doesn’t even bother to wipe away tear tracks. He shoves his phone at the dean, and then his hands into jacket pockets. “ _You_ call him.”

“Jeffrey, I —” the dean casts a look at Troy, but accepts the phone. He taps the screen. “William Winger?” His voice drops a couple notches. “Craig Pelton here. I’m a friend of your son.” 

Troy knows, in the back of his head, that Jeff and the dean were kind of friends. They bonded over karaoke and now have this love-hate friendship thing. Jeff just tries too hard to be cool. No one hates weirdos more than former weirdos who got hot. Not that he’s speaking from experience or anything. 

Troy also knows that the group speculates as much about which way Jeff swings and as they do about him and Abed. As if a swing doesn’t have a whole trajectory between two points. The entire point of a swing is the back and forth part. 

#

It’s because they’re pretending to be clones. Regular Troy would never have the courage otherwise. 

They don’t talk about it. The next day, or ever. He doesn’t bring it up because he can’t bear to hear the truth. 

He boards a ship the next day: the _Childish Tycoon,_ to the soundtrack of Childish Gambino. 

“Who is this?” asks LeVar Burton.

#

Troy only skypes one person from the group on his trip. One, he doesn’t have a smartphone. Two, his janky old laptop only gets wifi when they pass a generous building close to port with open wifi. That happened once, and obviously he called his mom. When he seeks out an internet cafe in Namibia and pays $10 for the pleasure of ten minutes, he plunges right in. You can’t have shame when you’re being charged by the second. 

“Shirley,” he pleads. “I need your advice.”

“Troy! Honey, you look great, where are you?” There’s a lot of noise behind her, like a kids’ party or something. He squints in the background. It is. He’s crashing her son’s birthday party. But he’s already knee-deep.

Shirley listens patiently as he babbles for three precious minutes of his time. “And I’ve offended him forever, and he won’t text me or answer any of my emails and I’m _losing my mind, Shirley._ I’m losing it.”

Jeff pops his head on screen. “Hey, Troy. I was going to lay low until the end, but this is already too awkward.” The dean comes onscreen too, waving ecstatically. 

“You invited _Jeff_ to your kid’s party?”

“We’re friends, Troy,” Shirley says reproachfully. “And Jordan loves Craig. They play ultimate frisbee together at the park.” 

“So like,” Troy’s wasting time but he can’t help himself, “are you two, like, together now?”

The dean calls, “He got a glimpse of me in a Meowmeow Beenz four toga. No man can resist these thighs!” Jeff shoves him out of view and says, unrepentant, “Yeah, well, once you overdose on your birthday, you can only lie to yourself for so long.” 

None of this means anything to Troy. But they’re both beaming in a weird contented way, and Troy is running low on time. 

“Shirley, what do I do?”

“Oh, Troy.” She’s doing something odd with her face. “Abed has a girlfriend. He probably just got busy.” 

There’s a crash from the other room. A high-pitched voice yells, _Moooom, Elijah broke everything! Also his leg._

Shirley says, “Jeffrey, take over.”

Jeff and the dean crowd into frame. 

Troy’s doomed.

Though maybe he was doomed already. He’s having trouble breathing. His heart isn’t working right either. Maybe he has a murmur. That would figure — giant heart defect that doesn’t manifest till adulthood when you’re on a boat in international waters. 

_Girlfriend. Abed has a girlfriend._

“Okay.” Jeff makes a _let’s get down to business_ gesture. “What you’ll want to do is post a picture of yourself with someone equally hot, but not hotter, than Abed. That part’s very important. First, you’ll need to find out his schedule — when is he most likely to check Facebook? Preferably early morning or late at night. Get the mood swing danger zone.”

The dean says, “Honey, no, shh,” and covers Jeff’s hand with his own. Troy can’t stop staring. “Troy. Abed is panicking just as much as you are. He’s also trying to find himself, except he’s stuck in his hometown. _You_ at least get to be on a luxury yacht with LeVar Burton. Ugh. So handsome. Just give him space. And tell him—”

The connection cuts out. 

#

Annie sends Troy postcards. He doesn’t even know how she knows his location. Maybe she sends postcards to every major port along the route he drew on the whiteboard in their kitchen. That would figure. 

He sends one of a mermaid back to her. A college-age kid in a coastal town in Chile was doodling the design on the back of a napkin. Troy taps the generic seascape postcard he’d bought earlier, and then taps the drawing, eyebrows raised. He never did learn much Spanish at Greendale. He hands her a peso note that might be way more than he intended, by the way she snickers. 

The kid draws an identical mermaid. It looks a lot like Britta. 

He’s not saying anything, really. Maybe just _you don’t have to stay in the lines_.

#

Troy Barnes keeps a journal. LeVar Burton knows this, because it’s not a written journal. The _Childish Tycoon_ has two bedrooms: Troy’s is next to the bathroom. 

“Captain’s log: Stardate 20130823. This should be the first day of classes at Greendale. It feels weird to not be starting with everyone. With you. Did Britta make her hair _slightly_ darker? Was Jeff’s shirt light or dark grey? I forgot to update the moodboard we were making of his daily outfits. You can log into my Pinterest account, the password is _RoseNylund._ ” There’s a clatter. Troy drops the voice recorder at least once a night. “I miss you. I didn’t realize how much. Which was probably dumb. I thought you’d be waiting for me till I got back, but that’s also probably dumb. You deserve a chance to become your own person too.” There’s a rewinding noise. Troy starts again. “I miss…McDonald’s.” 

#

Amazingly, it’s Britta that starts filling him in. Troy sometimes forgets they ever dated — they’re way too alike. But it comes in handy now. Britta is a wholly different person virtually; she never asks for deep, drawn out explanations of feelings (like Annie) or expects Troy to sit there quietly and listen to drawn out explanations of feelings (Jeff). She sends him small talk and updates whether he responds or not. 

_10/4/13_

_i saw a homeless vet outside the grocery store today - gave him $20 and got to talking. turns out he knew pierce in the 80s?? and punched him once. also he said pierce used to cruise glory holes. called it_

_12/17/13_

_made SLAMMIN eggs benedict for the first time. even annie approves. oh i’m living with annie and abed now, did i tell you?! not in your room, on the couch. abed’s good. making a film for the school (terrible) now that chang’s famous (worse). i attached a youtube link. show LeVar_

_4/29/14_

_hickey came into my bar last night. you never met him, he’s a greendale teacher. he and jeff are bros now, he goes to the farmers market with jeff & craig sometimes. anyhow, he dropped off a mint plant because it’s “too high maintenance for something with leaves” so now abed & i have mojitos every thursday. we’re planning a kentucky derby party. annie and frankie are excited about the hats. i’m hiding anarchist literature in the brim of mine - gonna distribute pamphlets once everyone’s trashed _

_6/15/14_

_abed’s moving to la_

#

Troy reads this as “la” at first and assumes he’s spending a week trapped in a musical format. He finally searches Chang’s commercial, and laughs until he cries. He then rips off the bandaid and watches Abed’s movie. It’s been sitting in a flash drive for months. 

He hooks his computer up to the projector Pierce installed in the living area. He makes popcorn and everything for the occasion, settles on the couch with his feet propped up. LeVar watches with a hand over his mouth. Troy laughs until he cries (again) which makes the actual crying easy to disguise later. 

He goes updeck to get air. Nighttime on the ship is his favorite. If they’re close to land, they’ll dock for the night so that they both can sleep. But out on the open waters, someone has to be at the helm at all times. They can drop anchor for a little if things are calm (in case of bathroom breaks, meals, and cat naps) but most of the time it’s Troy alone with his thoughts. 

They’re in the southern hemisphere now. All the constellations are different than the ones he grew up with. It’s indescribable: the inky sky melds into the inky ocean so it feels that the only lights are billions of light years away. 

_Abed’s moving to LA_ , he realizes. 

Los Angeles may as well be billions of light years away from Greendale, Colorado. 

Even if Troy did go home, it wouldn’t be the same. 

#

LeVar wants to make a stop in India. There’s an ashram he’s wanted to try but “his filming schedule always got in the way”, which is an insanely cool sentence. Troy mainly agrees because of that. 

They agreed at the beginning that the safest course was to hug the coastlines of continents whenever possible, and make the crossings of open sea as short as they could. This meant sailing down the west coast of the US, around and up South America, and making the hop over to Africa from the eastern-most edge of Brazil. They circled the Cape of Good Hope and then crawled up to the Middle East. It’s been over a year and a half now. Troy figures it’s his turn to let LeVar do something. Though he suspects LeVar has been doing voice readings for animated films remotely.

Troy pays to anchor at the marina for two weeks. He spends his days mostly on the beach, swimming, reading, playing tic-tac-toe with himself in the sand. He’s finally invested in a smartphone, and he catches up on pop culture sometimes. But it’s hard — the news cycles have shrunk from daily to hourly, and by the time he hears of something it’s already ancient history. He doesn’t mind so much. It’s more of a comforting habit. 

_This looks a lot like the beach at the end of the Bourne Identity_ , he tells Abed in his head, and imagines himself as Matt Damon in a white shirt, turning in surprise as Abed appears beside him on the beach. He’s stopped wondering why his imagination always supplies Abed as a romantic lead in his fantasies. He spent so long at Greendale tiredly denying that he was gay, in love with Abed, or all of the above, that he kind of just lets things be. It’s not that he doesn’t want women anymore — it’s that he doesn’t want anyone but Abed. 

He doesn’t feel like himself with anyone else. 

#

Abed still doesn’t write him. They’re both on Instagram now, though, and occasionally he likes Troy’s posts. This hurts worse. 

#

It was because they were pretending to be clones. Regular Troy would have never had the courage otherwise. But clone Troy could rap a knuckle on the upper bunk and whisper, “Can I come up?” 

Troy doesn’t ask if Abed’s a virgin. He suspects not, but doesn’t really want to know. He doesn’t want Abed’s hands on anyone else. He doesn’t want anyone else to know the soft noises Abed makes, or what his eyes look like when they flutter closed. 

They don’t talk about it. The next day, or ever. Troy fears it’s clone Abed and not regular Abed who is interested in Troy _like that_. What if Abed was only doing this because Troy was leaving? Or he thought it was something a sitcom lead would do?

He doesn’t bring it up because he can’t bear to hear the truth. 

He boards a ship the next day: the _Childish Tycoon,_ to the soundtrack of Childish Gambino. 

#

Annie sends him a short video from Jeff’s birthday. Jeff is there with Craig, Chang is there with what appears to be a boyfriend, and halfway through the video Britta kisses Annie on the mouth. Not in a drunken sorority girl way, but with the familiarity of a daily action. 

Troy uses precious international data to send her a text: _wtf???_

Britta answers for Annie, since Annie apparently took it the wrong way and is hurt. But Britta knows how Troy thinks. 

_it’s very common for groups of questioning or closeted queer people (i.e. all of us) to find each other regardless!! it just works out that way. tons of scholarly articles on this exact phenomenon. i’m attaching some JSTOR links_

Troy does not open the JSTOR links. He turns off his phone and has a breakdown.

LeVar finds him curled up on the bathroom floor. They’re off the east coast of Japan: only a few more months before they cross over from Russia to Alaska, and then it’s freewheeling down the Pacific Northeast. Whether they disembark in Portland or Los Angeles is a conversation Troy has been putting off for a long time. 

Somehow, in his head he’d been planning to dock in LA and live off his boat. He owns it, after all, and plenty of people do it. Well, Tom Hanks in _You’ve Got Mail._ Or Samuel T. Anders in that short-lived lawyer show set in San Francisco. Point being: Troy doesn’t have a home in Colorado anymore, all his possessions are here already, and he’s not really that close to his family. California to Colorado isn’t a bad trip for the holidays. And this is what people do, right? They graduate, grow up, move out. 

Except Troy’s _real_ family _is_ mostly still in Colorado. And he’d be lying if he said he doesn’t miss them like hell. Almost as much as he misses Abed. And Abed might not even want— 

“It’s just this big empty blank,” he’s telling LeVar.

LeVar is seated comfortably next to him; one leg stretched out, one knee up, leaning against the wall. “What is?”

“My future. Whatever’s next. I dropped out of college. I have no skills. Well, I’m okay at plumbing—”

“That's a start,” says LeVar. 

“But I don’t even know if I like it! Do I want to do it forever?”

“You don’t have to do it forever. You don’t even have to like it. Listen, kid, I don’t like to give a lot of advice, because advice is not one-size-fits-all. But I can tell you that most of adulthood is just trying stuff until it fails and then trying other stuff.”

Troy blinks at him. “Really?”

“It’s okay just to get from Point A to Point B. Most Americans call that living paycheck to paycheck.” LeVar cackles to himself and gets up. Troy can hear him pottering around in the kitchen. 

His breathing has slowed again. He watches dust dance in the sunlight. _Point A to Point B._

#

He stops stressing so much then, because a) there’s nothing he can do about Abed ghosting him and b) it helps him to consider his story as off screen now. If this were a film wherein Abed was the main character, well— the camera is definitely following his storyline. Troy isn’t relevant to the plot right now, so he can just do whatever he wants. 

He’s almost positive this is how Abed is thinking anyway. 

He and LeVar often play cards in the evening. Troy finally asks about LeVar’s love life. It’s kind of a mess. Not in a Hollywood way, just a person who has been on earth longer than forty years way. Troy always thought Pierce had seven failed marriages because he was a dick, but maybe only four of them failed because of that. He’s starting to consider that the others may have fallen apart because that’s just what happens. 

He’s hooked up with a few people along the way. Nothing serious, mostly guys. Just to make sure he doesn’t, you know, see a dick that isn’t Abed’s and have a panic attack. Maybe he doesn’t even like guys, maybe he just likes Abed. 

#

He does like guys. 

There’s the tall one in Côte d'Ivoire with arms like Jeff and eyes like Abed. He speaks in French the whole time and Troy pretends like he understands because it’s so hot. There’s another in South Korea, at a beach in Busan, who lends Troy a surfboard and grins when he wipes out. They make out on the water for a while, lying on the surfboard, the waves glittering and Troy’s arms warm under the sun. There’s a girl too, in Yemen. 

He imagines with perverse pleasure that Abed is watching. _You can’t write me back? Who cares. Look who wants me_. He feels bad after, but for whom exactly he’s not sure.

#

Maybe Abed will hold it against him. Maybe he was expecting Troy to be waiting for him this whole time. But how would Troy know that if Abed’s _cut him off?_

Every time he thinks he’s not angry, he’s angry again. 

At least that’s better than sadness. 

#

Jeff once made up a drinking game called _Twilight or not?_ He read aloud overdramatic, melodramatic lines from his phone while everyone had to guess if they were quotes from the _Twilight_ movie franchise or made up by Reddit users.

“This is the gayest crap I’ve ever heard in my life,” protested Pierce, who lost every round. He was halfway down the bottle. 

“‘You were out there this whole time and not looking for me?’” Jeff read.

“Yes!” Annie shouted. “Classic immortal vampire love declaration.”

“Ugh, I vote no,” said Britta. “Even judo-christian fundamentalism isn’t that sappy.”

“I vote _yes_ just for that,” said Shirley. 

“We’re on question eight and so far none of these have been _Twilight_ quotes,” Abed pointed out. 

“These are _all_ ,” proclaimed Jeff, grinning in a mean drunk way, “very real things that Troy has said to or about Abed.”

#

They cross the Bering Strait. It’s so cold Troy’s breath freezes his blanket to his face. He has to walk around like a jedi until he thaws out. He’s tempted to sing _Somewhere out there_ but he doesn’t. Not just because his vocal cords are frozen. 

He drops off LeVar at his lake house just outside of Vancouver (seriously, how class is this dude), where LeVar’s wife and children are waiting for him. Troy gets predictably choked up when they hug goodbye. 

He makes the rest of the journey down the US west coast alone.

#

Now that he’s back in the country, his phone explodes with notifications. Or maybe it’s just a normal amount. He never bothered to take it off airplane mode while on sea; he’s not used to keeping in touch with people so closely. It’s almost two years to the day that he left. Britta has added him to what she calls _the group text_ which seems to be the study group sending an endless sprawl of memes and emoji. Craig’s are especially concerning. Troy scrolls back nearly a month to find a message from Abed; it appears he’s not very active in the chat. 

_that’s just because he’s on set rn_ , Britta tells him. _wait till he’s between projects again. you’ll wake up to 50+ messages all sent at 3am_

Troy’s not so sure. 

He docks at the harbor in San Pedro, locks up, and hops off board. Annie sent him the address of Abed’s set. _They usually break for dinner around 8pm, based on his timestamps_ , she said. Troy has two hours to procure a barber, haircut, shave, and shoes that aren’t ratty, full of holes, and reek of seawater.

Abed’s here.

He’s here. 

He’s here on the dock, standing only a few feet away from Troy. He’s in his filming clothes: cap, skinny jeans, hoodie. It’s like a hand reached from the sky and plucked him out of Greendale, dropping him here on a dock in the blinding sunlight of LA. 

Troy pulls off his sunglasses. He wishes he wasn’t wearing this stupid ascot like Freddie from Scooby Doo. He wanted to look like a sophisticated ship captain, but now he just feels like a tool. 

Troy’s rehearsed the speech so many times in his head, but what comes out of his mouth is, “Why are you wearing a Battleship shirt? You hate Battleship.”

“You’re back,” Abed says, and kisses him full on the mouth. 

#

Troy thought he was angry before. He wasn’t. He’s _livid_.

“What the hell, Abed?”

Abed freezes. It’s his look of miscalculation. “Did I make a mistake? You didn’t want to?”

“No, I did.” Abed’s face relaxes. He leans in again. Troy stops him with a hand to his chest. “Why didn’t you write me back? Call me? Anything?” 

“You told me not to.”

Troy's brain screeches to a halt. 

“What?”

“Just before you left. In our apartment, you told me not to. You said, ‘don’t write unless you mean it.’”

Troy’s body is behaving weirdly. This whiplash between joy and terror is quickly sapping his energy. “And you didn’t mean it?”

Abed’s head tilts. It’s so familiar Troy could cry. “I’m not good with written communication. There’s no facial cues or verbal inflection. Dialogue feels flat. Emotion feels even flatter. I wouldn’t do us the disservice of misunderstanding.” 

Troy’s brain is breaking. He holds his head in his hands to keep it from spilling out. This wasn’t a romcom misunderstanding. This was so much worse. 

Abed continues, “Plus we’d been growing apart the year before. You had A/C school and your relationship with Britta. I had movies and _Inspector_ _Spacetime_. I was worried you’d come back different. You moved out of the bunk bed because you wanted more space. I thought maybe you meant that literally.”

There were episodes of _Star_ _Trek_ that always made Troy sad. They were the ones where Kirk and the crew realized that in a situation, they weren’t the good guys at all. That they were the architects of their own destruction. 

“I did like reading your letters. I wondered why you stopped writing. I thought maybe you’d —” Abed looks away here— “outgrown me.” 

“So this was a _gambit_?”

“I figured the medium demanded it.” 

“Oh my god. I love you,” Troy blurts. 

This doesn’t have the effect Troy thought it would. Abed’s face brightens — in that inscrutable way that only Troy can read — but he’s not shocked. 

“I know. You told me.”

“I did? When —” Then he has a fuzzy memory. Of climbing a gate. Terror twisting in his gut. Of looking down at Abed, who was wearing — a costume? That wasn’t weird, but the fact that Troy couldn’t recognize it _was_. He remembered all of Abed’s costumes. “Halloween. Five years ago.”

“Yes.” Abed regards him. “I started to get memories of it back.” He frowns: “You didn’t?”

“No, but— It doesn’t matter. I was already telling you all the time.” 

Not in so many words, but every time he opened his mouth. Jeff told him once, _You sound like a war widow every time you say Abed’s name_.

#

He dreams they’re back in that frozen yogurt shop by the mall. Troy’s lost his football scholarship. His life is in shambles. His mom isn’t speaking to him. His co-captain of the football team jeers, _Hey look at that weirdo, he hasn’t blinked his eyes once_. Troy watches his younger self lob a wadded-up Greendale flyer near Abed and sink further into his own self-doubt. No one notices. 

_Don’t worry,_ he tells himself. _That’s your husband._

#

Abed strokes Troy’s face. “You’ve grown a beard. I like it. I was worried I wouldn’t recognize you. But you’re the same.”

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr link](https://sonatine.tumblr.com/post/615409146244792320/jeff-once-made-up-a-drinking-game-called-twilight)
> 
> i've been rewatching community during quarantine lockdown (a sentence that will really age this fic someday) and every season is meshed together in my head now. not super claiming canon compliance here, but like - the sentiment stands


End file.
